The World Begins Again
by ExistInspire
Summary: With renewed outlooks on life, four superstars confront the past and finally allow themselves the chance to move on.


**Disclaimer:** Any mention of the WWE and it's Superstars is used here purely for entertainment purposes only and no copyright infringement is intended.

**Musical Disclaimer:** Song used is **Goo Goo Dolls – Better Days** and is owned by them. It is only reproduced here for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Cast:** Jeff Hardy, Trish Stratus, Lita and Matt Hardy.

**Summary:** With renewed outlooks on life, four superstars confront the past and finally allow themselves the chance to move on.

* * *

**And you ask me what I want this year  
And I try to make this kind and clear  
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days**

He entered the building through a side exit, knowing there was a chance that the others would enter through the front door and make their way back and wanting to avoid a scene. He had been going over this comeback for some time now and he knew this was the way it had to be.

Matt had to move on. That is what everyone he considered family kept telling him anyway. But they were really no better off then he was in that present moment. He was listening though because he wouldn't be back in a WWE arena if he wasn't.

If only he had known sooner that something was wrong he could have fixed it. He could have prevented his girlfriend cheating on him. Ideal as that would be; deep down he knew that it wasn't the truth. There was no way he could have known she was that unhappy with him, just as there had been no way of knowing his best friend would wind up getting the one thing that had meant more then life to him.

**Adam Copeland.** If he never had to see that man again in his life time, it would be too soon. Of all of the people in the world to turn around and drive the knife jagged like into his stomach, he had never thought it would be him.

Did he lay the blame on him completely? No but did share at least a quarter of it. But at the end of the day, the firing that had occurred and then his rehire had taught him a few hard life lessons. One of which was that as much as he hated the two of them for what they had put him through, it wasn't all on them anymore.

That what ifs had plagued him since the day the WWE told him they would no longer need his services. _What if I had just talked to her more? What if I had been more caring in her time of injury and need? What if I had stopped working so many road shows and come home to her knowing that she was lonely? What if she turned Jeff against him because of this?_

It had been a long hard battle to get to where he now stood. He was outside of the locker room door, about to enter the world he had dedicated his life too and there was no turning back. Even if he wanted to run, he couldn't run forever.

Pushing the door open and taking the first few steps in, seemingly going back in time to when they had all wrestled there as friends before; he came face to face with the one person who could do the most damage. He came face to face with the best friend that had turned his back on him for one lousy affair.

That one man being Adam Copeland.

* * *

**Cause I don't need boxes wrapped in strings  
And designer love and empty things  
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days **

_No time like the present to get this over and done with._ He thought to himself as he entered the locker room just in time to see Matt and Adam, the man known as Edge coming face to face for the first time since Matt's departure.

There was no love lost between the two men and Jeff fully understood why. But watching them now, he was faced with his own inner demons and the fact that he had not adequately dealt with them the last time he was here.

_You can do this, just keep your head down and mind your p's and q's._

The old adage from his childhood days came back to haunt him then but he knew it was coming back for a reason. He had come back after three years away from in ring competing. He had lost a lot of friends and then gained a lot of them that he didn't care to even remember.

But what he hadn't done was end things the right way in the one relationship that had been his savior for so long. He had walked away without so much as a empty goodbye and now coming back the way he was, being faced with his older brothers issues in that moment, he knew that he had to do that now.

He had to make things right again or he would never truly be able to move on.

_How do you say you are sorry to the woman who gave you her heart you and you walked away and trashed it? How do you make up for all of that pain, even after all of this time? How am I ever going to make her see that deep down what I did was because I loved her?_

Shaking off the how and why he watched his brother as he passed by the man that used to be his best friend and went about his normal routine of getting primed and ready for a match.

He envied him in that moment, hell he had always truly envied Matt that way. Matt was hurting, there was no doubt about it by the look in his vacant eyes but he still managed to keep a stiff upper lip and forge on as if nothing on the surface had changed.

_Why can't I do the same?_ Jeff questioned himself as he followed Matt's lead and put his bag down, falling onto the wooden bench himself just for a breather from the agony that was trailing him inside.

He knew he had to make things right between them, Trish and him of course because eventually they were going to have to work together on some level and make a serious go of a working relationship. Something they had been so talented at all those years ago but were going to be lacking in now. He didn't have to make her believe him, he just had to make her see that what had happened was probably the best thing that could have happened to both of them. It may have been done in the wrong way but at the end of the day she was free to be herself again and not be tied down to a man who was so much of an enigma that some days he didn't know where he was going to end up.

_I have to keep believing that what I did was for the best. I freed her from a life of torture and subsequent pain. While I cannot change the way things went down then, I can certainly make things even brighter for both of our futures. _

He slapped his brother on the back, in a loving gesture; letting Matt know that he was there for him even if he wasn't physically in the room with him and he went to do the one thing he should have done all those pill induced years ago.

He was going to make things right again.

* * *

**I need someplace simple where we could live  
And something only you can give  
And thats faith and trust and peace while we're alive **

_He comes back tonight. He is making his debut again, starting the roller coaster all over again._

She didn't want to think of him this way, and she hadn't been for the past two years since she had finally come to terms with the reason he had walked away without so much as a goodbye. But now, things were different and it seemed that the world had again shifted in her direction, making that feeling come back and haunt her again; the way it had then.

She watched the other women getting ready in the locker room and felt herself separated from them by some wall that she could not overcome. Try as she might to be one of them, to be happy and in love and content with her life; it just wasn't happening the way she had hoped.

Trish wanted more for herself, more for everyone around her but especially tonight she wanted it for herself. She wanted to forget that the man she had loved, the man she had given her heart and soul too was coming back and he hadn't even thought to look her up and tell her himself. She had to find out secondhand, but it didn't come as too much of a shock to her, it had ended that way so why not have it start that way again.

_Does he even have any remorse for the pain he caused me? Does he think about me the way that I think about him, even now after all of these years? Does he wonder if I have moved on and does he wish that I hadn't?_

Wondering was not getting her anywhere and she knew there was really only one way she could get the answers to the questions that she sought so badly. She had to go and face him for the first time in almost four years. She needed to go and face the past and finally put it behind her.

Because until now that was the one thing she had never truly done. Put the past behind her.

Truth be told when she was at home in Toronto, she often wondered if the person on the other end of the phone line was going to be him. If when she answered her door at all times of the day if he was going to be the one on the other side of it. She was sick of living her life this way, as if she was always going to be waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Waiting for Jeff Hardy to enter her life again and make things better after the mess he had left.

In fact there was more of a mess then even he was aware of. When he had walked away from her all those years ago he had left her with a secret, never even guessing that for once, he wasn't the only one that had something they couldn't find the words to truly admit.

The secret that if revealed now would change the world for all of them. From the smallest people to the ones in the bigger picture of the moment. From Matt and Amy, to Gil and her parents and then back again until it hit her and Jeff.

Standing from where she had been sitting, taking one long last lingering look around the room of women that seemed lost in their own happiness and greed, she headed for the door. There was no time like the present to get this over with.

Sometimes there could be no love without a lot of blood and sacrifice. She had to find out if Jeff felt the same way and then truly allow herself the pleasure of moving on, in whatever way she was meant to move.

No matter how much it killed her in the end to know the answer.

* * *

**And the one poor child who saved this world  
And there's 10 million more who probably could  
If we all just stopped and said a prayer for them **

_God please let me get through this night with my heart in tact. Let me get through all of the pain and bloodshed that is bound to come from his return. Most of all give me the strength not to point fingers and not to turn my back on the best friendship I have ever truly known. Not when right now I need it more then ever. _

She wasn't normally someone who relied on faith to get her through the darkest moments but then again this was never a place that she would see herself if anyone has asked her only a few short months before.

Amy had been in love with Matt and they had been eagerly looking toward a future together. A future filled with marriage, a family. All of the things that through countless hours of talking together, they had both come to find out they wanted.

What had changed all of that? When had she woken up and thrown it all away for the sole purpose of having sex with another man. Not just any other man either but the man that had for years been Matt Hardy's best friend? What had turned her so cold that she threw caution to the wind and had gone against her own heart and done the unthinkable?

_Loneliness._

That single word caused her heart to hurt just as it had back then. When things had been so perfect on paper, when Matt was there for her and he was never really on the road because he had an injury of his own. There had been no time for loneliness then because they had so much of each other that they never wanted to let go of it.

But whether he admitted it now or not, Matt had surely given up on them when he went back to work without a second thought to how being alone would truly make her feel. Was it his fault he loves what he does? No just as deep down she knew that the way she had been raised was not her fault. She had never been able to handle being completely alone and whether Matt knew it back then or not, she was truly alone the day he walked out the door to come back here to this arena and wrestle again.

_Stop blaming him for your own insecurities! Stop making this about you and realize for the final time that the world spins not only for yourself but for everyone in it. _

It was always easier this way, to find blame with other people and not lay it all at her own feet. She had been doing it for years and it seemed to come rather easily now.

When you were this way, how did you get past it and truly move on? Because if there was an answer out there for her then she had been hopeless to this point to find it. But she needed to find it because most of all she missed her best friend.

She missed Matthew Hardy.

* * *

**So take these words  
And sing out loud  
Cause everyone is forgiven now  
Cause tonight's the night the world begins again**

He had been just about to knock on the Women's locker room door when it opened in his face and he had to take a step back before being knocked down by it. When he got his wits about him and looked up to see just who had almost mowed him down he came face to face with the past and it took all of his might to shake himself of the hold it seemed to carry with it.

"Jeff.." she exclaimed jumping back against the now closed door and holding her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound of her own frightened voice.

"Trish.."

As they both stared silently at each other, fighting for the words that they had both seemed to rehearse earlier in their minds; they watched as the rest of the world moved on around them.

_She looks just as good as she did then._ Jeff thought, wanting so much to say the words but knowing that he no longer held the right too. After what he had done and the way he had done it he didn't deserve much with this woman anymore and the reality of it made him sick.

"I heard you were coming back." She said, calming her nerves long enough to gather her composure and move away from the door and closer to him. Close enough that he could smell the familiar perfume she normally wore.

_Some things never change._

"I meant to call and tell you but every time I picked up the phone the right words never seemed to come."

"It's alright Jeff, I never expected you too."

_Why does she have to do that? Why does she have to be so nice all of the time? Why can't she just scream at me? _

It sure would have made things easier on him. He felt like a heel coming back the way he had and not giving her at least the smallest heads up before hand. How she could stand there and be so nice about it was beyond him.

"There is so much I need to say to you Trish, so much that I need to make up for. I held so much back from you for so long that I do not even know where to begin."

As he watched her process his words he realized the uneasy way she was looking around. She would not look him in the eye the way she had mere seconds before. Choosing now to stare at her feet and the marks on her shoes. Was it possible that this was just too much for her right now?

"We all have secrets Jeff."

"You didn't." He answered sure of himself and his statement.

"Yes I did. I mean I do. You aren't the only one that has things that need to be said Jeff. It's been a long time coming but there are some things I need to tell you about too."

He motioned to her with his hands to the cafeteria area, seeing now that people were exiting but no one seemed to be going in. He assumed in that moment that if they needed to speak to one another, there they would have the real privacy to do it.

She followed behind him slowly, all the while feeling the knot in her stomach growing stronger with each move of her feet, which by now felt like moving lead.

The time of reckoning had finally arrived.

* * *

**So take these words  
And sing out loud  
Cause everyone is forgiven now  
Cause tonight's the night the world begins again**

"Amy."

She spun around at the sound of her name, expecting to see Adam or another fellow wrestler just wanted to say hello. What she got was a whole lot more and then some.

"Matt, god its so good to see you!" she practically shouted, throwing her arms around him in an awkward hug that she noticed instantly he did not seem to return. Not that she had expected him too, she just hadn't known in that moment what else to do.

"I'm sorry." She said as she pulled away from him, the scent from his body seeming to follow her as she did. "I don't know what I was thinking."

He put his hands up telling her without words that she needed to stop talking before she said something that would surely come out wrong. She did as he motioned and slowed down long enough to do the one thing she owed him after what she had done to him. She finally stopped long enough to listen.

"You do not need to be sorry for doing what you wanted to do. I want to be able to hug you again too you know. I just don't think I'm quite there yet. But maybe in time I can be."

_Was he really saying what she thought he was saying? Was he actually admitting that he wanted to be around her again?_

"What does that mean Matt? What are you saying?"

"I am saying I forgive you."

The words she had wanted for so long, the ones that could finally make her feel whole again had finally come. She knew that she should be happier that he had finally had the time he needed to come to terms with the bad things that had happened between them but she wasn't sure if thats all there was. For some reason it didn't seem as over as she thought it should when he said those words. Something was missing.

"You forgive me? But; well I know there has to be a but here."

He smiled, her words seemingly finding him in a good place. "There is a but, but it isn't much of one. I forgive you for what happened when I got fired all of those months ago. I am just not in the same place that you are right now in forgetting about it. But Amy, I want to get there. I want to get to the place where I can get my best friend back. The Amy Dumas I knew before she became larger then life Lita."

"You do?"

"Don't you want the same thing?" he asked, raising his eyebrows in question. From the hug she had thrown on him upon seeing him he was almost sure she wanted the same end result here. That they wanted to be able to find the friendship they had shared before they dated.

That was all that mattered to him at this point. His mother had once told you that you could never go back but you could leap forward and that was what he wanted to do now. He did not want to go back with her, he wanted to go forward.

"Yes Matt, I miss our friendship more then anything else we shared. I just want to be sure that being my friend is something you can deal with."

He laughed then, a sound she hadn't known she missed until she was given it again, like a gift you thought you would never receive again.

"I am fine with working on being your best friend again Amy but it's going to take time."

"And Adam and I?"

"Are none of my concern." he stated heavily, his eyes glazing over just at the sound of his old friends name. Something that Amy could understand completely.

"Fair enough."

He looked at her then, and Amy felt as if he was looking straight into her soul. It became real when he spoke again, saying the words she had been longing for since the whole terrible incident had happened.

"So what do you say partner? Friend?"

She watched as he outstretched his hand in her direction and almost felt like a happy child as she placed her small hand into his, shaking it the way only friend would. Only true friends could.

"Friends."

* * *

**I wish everyone was loved tonight  
And somehow stop this endless fight  
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days**

They were alone now, in a room filled with catering but no one at all to eat any of it. As Trish watched the food going bad before her eyes she wondered just how much longer they were going to have to deal in silence.

"Why did you leave without saying goodbye Jeff?"

"I couldn't bring myself to tell you."

"But why? We loved each other, we were supposed to tell each other everything!"

She watched as he did his nervous act and ran his fingers through his long and wild hair. She noticed it wasn't as full of color as it had been back then but she assumed that eventually some things had to change. They couldn't remain the same forever.

"You're right, we did love each other. I never doubted your love for me nor did I doubt my love for you. I just had other issues and doubts that overrode those."

"Like what?"

"I was addicted to pain pills and while I am sure you know that there is more that you didn't know back then. A secret that not even my own brother knows."

She reached out to touch him then, seeing the absolute pain etched on his young features, just begging to get out in some way. She felt for him, just the way she always had and she welcomed it.

"What secret did you keep from everyone Jeff?"

"I was taking steroids Trish. I was addicted to steroids."

Her hand flew to her mouth then, taken aback that throughout the entire time they had dated she had never once suspected that on top of the addiction to the pain medication he had been addicted to something else as well.

It hit her then that they really hadn't known each other at all back then. If he could keep that from his own brother, it was surely no issue for the person that loved him enough to overlook his obvious changes in mood and behavior.

"Why didn't you tell me all of this? Why tell me now?"

"Because we need to move on from it. We are going to have to work together Trish and I do not want to have all of this past garbage dragging us down. I know that time has taken away the love you have for me and thats fine but I need to tell you now so that I can move on knowing I told you every single thing that I hid from you all these years."

She just nodded her head, again looking at the state of her shoes and not at the man who had just confessed a long hidden secret to her. Leaving Jeff again to wonder just what it was that she was hiding from him and had been hiding all of this time.

"You said you had a secret from back then." he stated, not wanting to push her but desperately wanting to know just what she had been able to keep from him.

Jeff watched as she reached her hand into the inside of her shirt and wondered silently just what the hell she was attempting to do. But before he could ask her what she needed to do inside of her shirt, he saw what she was holding out to him and knew that she had been getting paper out the entire time.

As he took the paper from her and flipped it over he realized it was a picture. Not just any picture but a picture of a young baby girl, flowing blond locks of hair, curled the way his had when he was a baby and then he got a real good look at the eyes.

"You had a baby." he managed to choke out in disbelief. Had she had this child the entire time they dated? Was that what she kept from him? "Congratulations."

She took the picture back from him and that was when he caught the look on her face and the tears that were now running slowly down her cheeks. Before he had a chance to wipe them away she put her hands up to stop him.

"You don't get it do you Jeff. Yes I had a baby girl, a baby girl I named Reese but thats not why I'm showing you the picture."

"Then why are you showing it to me?" he asked, completely dumbfounded as to what she was trying to get at. Surely she wasn't beating herself up over not telling him all those years ago that she had a baby when they dated. So what was really going on here?

"Jeff damn it! She's your daughter. I got pregnant the last time we were together but you took off without saying goodbye or any word really. So I was left to raise her alone."

It hit him with a force reminiscent of a tidal wave then. The reason Trish was crying and admitting to a secret, one that was obviously big enough to tear them apart again. The reason she was in such a state was because this was his baby girl. A baby he had never known and that had grown up without him.

"Mine?"

"Yes Jeff. I'm so sorry. You see I wanted to tell you all this time but the one time I did call home to Cameron, I was told you didn't want to talk to me. So I thought that was it and I just stopped trying."

He knew that time well and he instantly felt bad for what he had made his father go through telling Trish not to contact them anymore because he wanted nothing more to do with her. What that had done to her surely was a lot worse then he had assumed it was back then. She had been shut off from telling him that he had a baby.

"My God! I had no idea. Trish..."

"I'm so sorry Jeff. I never meant to hide it from you."

He reached out to her then and pulled her to him. He had come here tonight with the idea in mind to finally let go of her. To let her move on with her life and find true happiness with someone much better then him. Now though it seemed as if the whole world had shifted and maybe it was giving him another chance to make up for what he had broken.

He held her tightly as she cried into his chest, all the while coming to terms with what had always been right in front of his face. She had gone through options no doubt. Instead of making the pregnancy or the baby never exist, she had chosen to have his child and bear the brunt of being a mother to it, without him. She had done him one better then he had ever done her.

She had given him a daughter and with that a renewed hope that they had been brought back together for a reason. A reason that hadn't made itself clear until now.

"Can you forgive me?" she asked through her tears as she pulled away from him then, making the place where she had just been seem empty and cold.

"There is nothing to forgive. You gave me a gift that I never thought I would ever be able to have. If anything I need to be thanking you. But there is something I need to say more right now. Something I need to know."

"What Jeff? What do you need to know?" she questioned as she continued to wipe the wet tears from her eyes.

"Do you still love me? Because I never stopped loving you. I just wanted you to be happy. Knowing what I know now though, I don't think either one of us will be happy unless we finally give in to what we should have all those years ago."

"And that is?"

He brought her to him again, aching for the same warmth near his heart that having her beside him could bring. As soon as her body willingly touched his again, he felt himself instantly start to warm and knew just what he had to say.

"That we belong together."

They held each other for what felt like the longest time without speaking and the only reason the silence was broken was for the answer to Jeff's earlier question. The question that was due to change the way all of their lives worked from this day forward.

"Yes Jeff, I never stopped loving you."

So at one end of the building two people were becoming fast friends again, finding their way back to each other in the way that only friends could. Where in this room two lovers were finally admitting that they could never function without the other and that they had renewed hope for a bright future, one with them as a family.

The World Begins Again.

**So take these words  
And sing out loud  
Cause everyone is forgiven now  
Cause tonight's the night the world begins again  
Cause tonight's the night the world begins again**

* * *


End file.
